Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

51

Dominion Articles / Ruined Village as the only +Action

« on: April 01, 2015, 12:11:41 am »

With the relative success of my previous thread on Ruined Market as the only +Buy, I thought I'd share some thoughts I had about a similar, less discussed topic that deserves just as much time in the spotlight.

We've seen those boards before, those ugly, ugly boards with no Villages. Now I know you're thinking "Those boards aren't worth playing, Adam. Just resign and move on to another game; hopefully that will have a village in it." and your instincts are pretty good! But one day I was hovering over the resign button when I thought to myself "Self, I didn't get to the top 55 of the leaderboard by just giving up when things looked grim. Let's make something out of nothing here!" I clicked over to the next page and saw the most beautiful thing:



There on that board with all terminals I found my respite here. In the darkness I found the one place where I could play an Action card and know that my turn isn't over yet, I can still go on.

It goes without saying (even though I'm about to say it) that in Dominion, the person who plays more action cards usually wins the game, this gives rise to various axioms we universally adopt around here without question such as Always Play Your Necropolis (APYN), and the P1 T1 "checkmate" Necropolis (I can't count the number of games I've won just from my opponent resigning after I slam down that sweet, sweet Necro on turn 1 before they ever get a chance to get on the board). When Ruined Village is your only chance at Multiple Action Turns (MATs), you really have to commit in order to make it work.

What if Ruined Village isn't on top? Well then you might have to look for synergy in order to get your Double-Ruin turns, that way you spend less time digging through the Ruins and more time playing Action cards. Workshop seems pretty good for this.

Consider a kingdom where the only non-terminals are Golem, Ironworks, and Ruined Village. Just think about the explosive synergy here! Golem really wants to hit those non-terminals, and what better way to put them into your deck than with Ironworks -- by gaining a Ruined Village you make Ironworks non-terminal itself! Who needs terminals? Playing a Golem could hit an Ironworks and a Ruined Village, you play your Ironworks to gain some more Ruins and now you have an extra action so you can play your Ruined Library and refresh your hand! The power is unspeakable!

Happy April First, everyone! 

52

Dominion General Discussion / Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: March 21, 2015, 02:01:42 pm »

I would have put this in the Articles subforum, but this thread, which is one of my favorite threads on the forum in recent memory, was posted here, so Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery (IITSFOF)...

The purpose of this thread is to highlight neat little interactions or synergies between two cards that may not be the most obvious thing. A couple of times this has caught me by surprise in a game and while they may have been talked about in bits and pieces on the forums, I really like the idea of being able to read a thread full of one-line cute tricks. Who knows if you'll find any goodies that you hadn't really thought of?

EDIT: Let's try to keep this thread on topic, please 

I'll begin:

Quarry and Stonemason: When playing Quarry, the price of Stonemason reduces to zero, so the normal "quarry gives +$2 if you're buying one action" and "you need $2 extra to get the extra action with Stonemason" becomes much better. You get cost reduction on both the Stonemason you buy AND on the overpay!

Apothecary and Shanty Town: Any top-deck interaction will help you trigger your Shanty Towns more, this is true; but I think Apothecary stands to benefit the most from this, as it can get a lot out of using Shanty Towns early to draw your green and pushing your terminals off until later in the turn when you've got the actions to play them and trigger future Shanty Towns.

Doctor and Fool's Gold: These two have a troubled relationship, that's for sure. Fool's Gold is a card that can provide you high-income hands very early, which can lead to very beneficial Doctor overpays if you're paying close attention.

Highway and Horn of Plenty: You don't need to worry about having enough unique cards with Highway around, every Highway you play effectively counts as a unique card since it reduces the cost of whatever you're going to gain.

...and some of the more standard ones:

Highway and Ironworks Cost-reducers and gainers synergize, for sure, but these two probably deserve a special mention. Highway and Ironworks are both non-terminal so it's very easy to get lots of them to increase your chances of collision, and spamming these cards can be a way to get lots of power-$5 cards very quickly.

53

Dominion League / S6 Champion Match - Friday March 20, 19:00 UTC

« on: March 18, 2015, 07:14:32 pm »

Sorry for the short notice, but...

SheCantSayNo, the fourth unique person to take part in a Dominion League Champion Match, co-world cup champion, and drinker of delicious coffee, will try his hand at taking down the Season 6 title on Friday. He needs to win 6 games out of 6 (no ties allowed!) games against Mic Qsenoch, who has a commanding lead and is on top of his game. Can he pull it off? There's only one way to find out!

Tune in this Friday, March 20, 2015 at 19:00 UTC for this true David-vs-Goliath matchup, as it is live-streamed in split-screen format. With commentary provided by the incredible duo of myself and Wandering Winder, what more could you ask for?

54

Dominion Articles / Ruined Market as the only +Buy

« on: March 05, 2015, 08:48:41 am »

Not exactly an article, but I'm hoping for some thoughtful Dominion discussion on this topic...

We all have those big dreams of making an engine with Ruined Market as the only +Buy, I know I have. You know what else I've done? Lost a lot of games going for an engine where Ruined Market is the only +Buy. I've won a couple of them and I think I might have begun to grasp what the things are that can make this possibly work, and at least some of the things that make it not work. Unfortunately, several of my examples are IRL games, and the examples I have on video aren't terribly helpful.

I'm going to make a lot of bolded statements that are much more absolute than I prefer to make, so if anyone has any counterexamples they'd like to share, please do. That's most of the reason I'm making this thread. Some of the things I'm saying are bad ideas may seem silly and you may ask "how many times have you actually done these things?" The answer to that question is "more often than I'd like to admit." In IRL games sometimes I become a Johnny and I do some pretty silly things, especially if the game starts at 2AM or later. One of my pet tricks that never works is trying to make these kinds of decks work.

Will your opponent be giving you Ruins? Take a look at why there are Ruins on the board. Sometimes it's just because of Death Cart and there's no way for your opponent to force you to have Ruins (yeah yeah edge case there could be Ambassador too, whatevs), but other times there's Marauder or Cultist around and you might be getting Ruins. Of course that's not always the case, but let's assume right now that you've decided the best strategy involves giving your opponent Ruins, and let's assume you aren't wrong.

If you aren't mirrored and the opponent doesn't try to junk you, then you've won the Ruins split 10-0 and you're probably going to win the game. Easy peasy. They probably can't make use out of 10 Ruined Markets at this point so you should be fine.

If you are mirrored, it gets a little more interesting, mainly the question you ask isn't "do I gain Ruined Market?" anymore, but rather it's "do I keep Ruined Market?" If there's no trashing, then I've never seen Ruined Market make the difference in engine payload, ever.

If there is trashing, then there's always the temptation to keep your Ruined Markets around. Sure, if you have other options on what to trash that are viable then go ahead, trash them first; you have nothing to lose. But if your choice is to trash Ruined Market or trash nothing and you aren't drawing your deck (or close to it) then I've never been happy with my decision to keep Ruined Market in this case, and I've never been sad that I trashed Ruined Market, ever.

There's the temptation to not play your looter when you know you're going to give your opponent a Ruined Market (you see it on top of the pile). I've never been happy that I didn't play my Looter just to deny my opponent a Ruined Market, ever. I've also never been unhappy that I played my Looter, giving my opponent a Ruined Market, ever.

Is there a gainer? This question is important, because if you're building some kind of engine by only getting one card per turn, you're going to have a really tough time outracing Big Money. With no +Buy and no gainer you're building so slowly and your mechanism to catch back up (your payload) can't really be all that spectacular if your only +Buy is Ruined Market.

Is Ruined Market on top of the pile? If there's no gainer, you're just buying a Ruined Market with one of your turns. That's so bad. I've never been happy with buying a Ruined Market, ever. On the other hand, if it's on top of the pile, go ahead and gain it when it's right for your engine!

Is there Throne Room in the kingdom? So an interesting statistic: in my Dominion career I've won three games where Ruined Market was the only +Buy and the centerpiece of my payload, and there are a few things that they all had in common:

- I was either handed Ruined Market by my opponent, or gained it when I saw it on top of the pile (meaning I never spent a buy on Ruined Market, and I never went digging through the Ruins deck to find one).

- There was some trashing available, and enough draw that I could draw my deck.

- Throne Room was in the kingdom.

Throne Room, eh? I've played lots of decks where Ruined Market was just not enough payload, but with Throne Room it's actually worked for me. What's magical about Throne Room? Well Procession gets rid of your precious Ruined Market. Why not Zoidberg King's Court? Well I guess that's just never come up, but I imagine that works even better and can maaaaybe help you justify digging through the Ruins deck to find a Ruined Market, but I just don't have any data on that. I think the takeaway here is that without TR or KC, you really really really need to think hard about how viable your deck is actually going to be before you go for it.



Does anyone else have any discussion to add? I'd certainly like to hear about other peoples' experiences with this kind of deck.

55

Dominion General Discussion / The Golden Sombrero and other Dominion Slang

« on: February 16, 2015, 10:35:57 am »

I say a lot of things while I'm streaming Dominion. Some of them are intelligible, but as for the rest, well we have this thread. Some things are easy to understand, like calling Curses "purples", Menagerie "Menage", or Ill-Gotten Gains "IGG", but some may be a little more cryptic. I noticed in my chat people asking about "The Golden Sombrero" so I think the least I can do is to explain how it came to be.

The Golden Sombrero was originally a baseball term, given to a player when he strikes out four times in one game. It was first brought to the Dominion world by Wandering Winder to describe a situation where both of his opening buys missed the shuffle. Since then, I've been using it to describe this particular situation and also if you opened 5/2, you open 5-cost/nothing and you don't get to see your 5-cost because it missed the shuffle.

Something else I like to do is talk about "The Full English Breakfast." This is yet another relic from my blatant fanboyism of WW. It was originally used to describe some terrible Urchin luck, but I like the idea of using it to describe the situation when you open double Silver (or Silver+Terminal Silver/Silver equivalent) and you don't hit $5 on T3 or T4. This could be due to an opponent's attack, or a Golden Sombrero, or just generic bad draws.

What other Dominion slang like this do you use? Are these things universally hated?

56

Game Reports / S6 League match -- did I miss something?

« on: February 12, 2015, 09:06:44 am »

Code: [Select]

Poor House, Feast, Fortress, Remake, Remodel, Wandering Minstrel, Apprentice, Cache, Mystic, King's Court, with Shelters
Game Log
Video

So I'm looking over last season's league games and the chat, this is one I meant to bring up a while ago and never got around to doing. I re-read the chat (the relevant portion is copied below, there's some discussion about the next game at the end in case you're confused) and there's a lot of talk about something better than what I'm doing and how what I'm doing is wrong, but I don't understand it. Did I miss something here? It's hard for me to believe that I'm seeing something that lots of really good players completely missed.

Code: [Select]

<stef_42> hmm pretty bad 5/2
<elatalkstoherself> Five two. Oh that's not 4/3 that's not 4/3 at all
<stef_42> looks like remake/-
<elatalkstoherself> Apprentice is pretty nice for 5/2?
* joseph2302 (joseph2302@joseph2302.tmi.twitch.tv) has left
<seprixinc> Every time I get 5/2, it blows
<elatalkstoherself> mreh?
<elatalkstoherself> Apprentice/Fortress is a thing
<seprixinc> But every time my opponent gets it, it's good
<witherweaver> Hm, Remake with Shelters and Poor House :/
<elatalkstoherself> Apprentice/Fortress/Poorhouse????????????
<stef_42> yes apprentice/fortress is a thing. But so is remake/fortress
<seprixinc> Remodel Fortress is a thing
<jsh357> remake/nil
<jsh357> you can also combine remake/apprentice/fortress
<seprixinc> KC Apprentice on Fortress yo
<jsh357> not mutually exclusive
<seprixinc> That's amazing
<jsh357> WM/mystic is good
<elatalkstoherself> I kind of... don't like Remake here?
<jsh357> remake is amazing here
<jsh357> even with poor houses
<stef_42> yes remake is good
<elatalkstoherself> Is it okay that I don't see how?
<jsh357> yes
<witherweaver> no, you should go punish yourself
<jsh357> haha
<elatalkstoherself> pff
<stef_42> and that "nothing" should be estate for sure
<elatalkstoherself> I shall now cut off my head
* amalloy (amalloy@amalloy.tmi.twitch.tv) has joined
* jtv gives channel operator status to amalloy
<jsh357> you mean open estate?
<stef_42> yes
<jsh357> oh is it shelters
<jsh357> interesting
<elatalkstoherself> Estate can get rid of the hovel
<elatalkstoherself> BORKWARD
<jsh357> adam has that stupid preview up
<elatalkstoherself> oh that's not 4/3 at all
<jsh357> first mistake of the game
<stef_42> I don't understand the poor house opening, nor the feast
<jsh357> you will hvae 7 PH without trying
<elatalkstoherself> foooooortreeeeeeess
<elatalkstoherself> FAWTRES
<jsh357> remake
<jsh357> remake!  yes!
<jsh357> imagine
<jsh357> kc remake
<elatalkstoherself> What can you do with remake?
<jsh357> on 2 fortresses
<elatalkstoherself> here
<witherweaver> You can Remake things
<jsh357> that is 6 mystics
<jsh357> one turn
<jsh357> fortress _ apprentice to draw
<jsh357> poor houses for money
<jsh357> the deck builds itself
<jsh357> remake KCs later on
<stef_42> this would be a huge engine without KC too
<jsh357> with remake kc you can triple prov
<stef_42> but with KC... yes that doesnt make it weaker :)
<elatalkstoherself> whAt
<elatalkstoherself> what did you do adammm
<jsh357> did
<jsh357> he got feast
<jsh357> ok
<elatalkstoherself> BUT FORTREEEEEESS
<stef_42> feast is not ok
<jsh357> well i guess there's logic there
<jsh357> but uh
<stef_42> not even close to ok
<jsh357> i would have gotten remake
<stef_42> adam, buy estate :(
<jsh357> then again i have no idea what he's doing anymore
<elatalkstoherself> Apprentice ain't nothin' without fortress
<elatalkstoherself> DDDDDDDO IT
<stef_42> he is trying to trash 7 coppers with apprentice
<jsh357> no
<jsh357> he wants to trash copper
<elatalkstoherself> diddly do it
<stef_42> it's still better then big money, but far from optimal
<jsh357> i suppose he can kc apprentice later
<seprixinc> ^
<seprixinc> Yeah
<seprixinc> KC Apprentice on Fortress is awesome
<jsh357> now buy remake
<elatalkstoherself> I love when the fortresses go BOINGGGG
<seprixinc> I just came back, so if what I said was dumb, sorry
<stef_42> no, now he should go for KC (so buy mystic)
<seprixinc> Stef is right
<jsh357> adam you are so frustrating
<seprixinc> That KC
<seprixinc> Adam is amazing.
<jsh357> he should not win half the time he does >:(
<seprixinc> Well, I should win half the time I don't.
<seprixinc> :p
<seprixinc> I'm twice as old has half of you, and half as old as twice of you!
<seprixinc> That Bilbo Bagins trickery
<stef_42> get rid of 3 coppers for sure
<stef_42> great turn for adam
<jsh357> yay
<jsh357> he listened!
<jsh357> maybe he loves us!
<stef_42> maybe he should buy remodel instead of remake
<jsh357> i am happy either way
<elatalkstoherself> If you have more than 4 treasure in your hand does PH have negative value?
<seprixinc> Remodel Fortresses into Mystics
<stef_42> remodel is a lot more flexible, but I guess he can buy that next turn
<seprixinc> Remodel is better long term
<jsh357> now he needs to get KCs
<jsh357> probably mystics first
<elatalkstoherself> Mystique
<stef_42> he doesn't need to buy any KC
<seprixinc> This is a fun board for sure though
<witherweaver> I'm not sure what you mean by negative values.. Poor house gives you +4 and then stats subtracting.  You coin amount cannot take on negative values
<seprixinc> Every board is fun!
<stef_42> he can gain them with remake
<witherweaver> *starts
<jsh357> he does if he wants to get multiple provinces
<jsh357> oh
<jsh357> yes by that logic
<jsh357> he could remake to them
<jsh357> with more remakes he can just pile the game out
<stef_42> the thing he needs to buy is remodel
<elatalkstoherself> But like.... If you have 4 copper 1 silver in your hand and you play PH... do you still have $6 or do you only have $5 then?
<jsh357> you don't play ph then
<amalloy> 6
<elatalkstoherself> But if you did
<jsh357> you would have 6
<elatalkstoherself> I mean I'm talking technicalities here
<stef_42> You have $0
<jsh357> actions before treasures
<seprixinc> KC the Mystic
<seprixinc> ?
<witherweaver> You didn't have $6 before.. You play poor house, you get +$4, then you get -$5
<stef_42> because treasures in your hand are worth $0
<witherweaver> with a floor of $0
<seprixinc> Or do you save that for the PH
<jsh357> nah he can apprentice fortress
<jsh357> first i mean
<witherweaver> if you had $10 from actions before, you would be at $9
<stef_42> but after you play the poor house ($0), you can still play the treasures and then you have $6
<elatalkstoherself> Aha
<witherweaver> then you can play the coins for $6 more, so $15
<elatalkstoherself> ahhhhh okay
<jsh357> hooray
<jsh357> adam is thinking!
<seprixinc> Adam usually does that.
<jsh357> kc remake so good
<stef_42> not sure adam can win this turn
<elatalkstoherself> I think app-fortress now and THEN KC-Mystic?
<jsh357> 6 5 cost cards per play
<elatalkstoherself> OOOO DOUBLE KC
<jsh357> so loooking at piles
<jsh357> he needs about 17gains
<elatalkstoherself> mystiques
<elatalkstoherself> ja
<stef_42> no, adam cant win here
<seprixinc> Get a Province here, then end everything next turn
<jsh357> he can win soon enough
<stef_42> maybe he could have if he had remodel
<jsh357> not province
<jsh357> remake or remodel
<stef_42> he should buy remodel or feast
<jsh357> feast does work too
<jsh357> but remake on fortress has to be better than that
<stef_42> why would he buy fortress?
<jsh357> no he has 1
<stef_42> well now he probably wins too
<jsh357> he only needs 1
<jsh357> he needs more remakes is what i'm saying
<witherweaver> I don't really know what's happening here
<stef_42> he can gain 12 $5 cards, so all remaining mystics and duchies
<jsh357> kc remake twice, that's 12 5 costs
<seprixinc> KC Remake > Duchy?
<jsh357> which piles the game
<seprixinc> Yeah.
<seprixinc> That's it.
<seprixinc> Apprentice Apprentice here for sure
<seprixinc> Save that KC
<jsh357> ww, what's happening here is fortress broke dominion
<jsh357> it happens
<witherweaver> no, I mean what his plan is
<seprixinc> Fortress is awesome
<jsh357> his plan is clear
<jsh357> kc remake on fortress
<jsh357> yay
<jsh357> god this is so ridiculous
<elatalkstoherself> ducky
<jsh357> love it
<elatalkstoherself> Also the colors.
<seprixinc> Hiya Ela
<seprixinc> c:
<witherweaver> but couldn't that have been done a few turns ago?
<elatalkstoherself> Red = trash, white = play influenced by another card
<seprixinc> All good games here.
<stef_42> adam played better so he deserved the win
<stef_42> 5/2 has little to do with it
<jsh357> yeah e was just floating along
<jsh357> adam was gaining power cards and trashing down
<seprixinc> Adam is not the player that Dominion deserves.. but he's the player that Dominion needs.
<jsh357> no luck there
<elatalkstoherself> hehe
<elatalkstoherself> gaw.
<jsh357> this will be a painful game
<jsh357> adam's a big guy
<jsh357> for you
<seprixinc> lol
<seprixinc> The Mountebank Rises!
<witherweaver> would going for Provinces have worked as well?  Or would it have taken too long to get the Golds for Remodel or extra KC's for Remake?
<jsh357> it takes multiple turns to do that ww
<jsh357> piling the 5s was done in 1
<jsh357> it would work if the game ran long enough
<elatalkstoherself> Would CS actually be good here?
<witherweaver> right, but you could do 3ish a turn
<jsh357> yes
<jsh357> but e didn't
<jsh357> so there was no need
<witherweaver> Could possibly go Fortress->random $5-> Gold -> 3 Provinces in the same turn
<seprixinc> City is too slow.
<jsh357> yeah but piles ended the game
<stef_42> no it isnt
<jsh357> the goal is to win


57

Help! / World Cup match, so confused

« on: February 10, 2015, 11:05:57 am »

Game log

YouTube video

I don't know how I lost this game, I played Big Money with Trading Post and a single Black Market and I only had 4 Provinces and 2 Duchies at turn 21. The only misplay I can think of was potentially picking up a Marauder from the Black Market, but I still think that might have slowed my opponent down more than me, I'm not sure.

I can't imagine my opponent's strategy being any better than big money here, and it still seems to me like he got very lucky and I got very unlucky. On the other hand, YMYOSL and I'm not ready to accept that yet.

So what happened? How did his strategy perform anything close to reasonably well, and how did I lose this game?

58

Dominion League / S5 Champion match: Sunday February 1, 20:00 UTC

« on: January 28, 2015, 10:47:35 pm »

There comes a time for everyone... but this time it's Stef and Mic Qsenoch's time!

We've never seen a Champion Match in the league without one of them present, but now it's time for our only two previous league champions to DO BATTLE.

The Season 5 Champion Match will be on Sunday, February 1 at 20:00 UTC. I'll be streaming it from my channel, and if all goes well we'll be able to see both players' hands throughout the match. Wandering Winder and I will be commentating.

Rarely will you get a chance to see such high-level Dominion play from this kind of perspective, GET HYEP!

EDIT: here are the results:

Game 1 Log submitted by soulnet

Game 2 Log submitted by JW

Game 3 Log submitted by AdamH/E

Game 4 Log submitted by JW

Game 5 Log submitted by DG

Game 6 Log submitted by JW

Twitch Highlight

YouTube Video Playlist

Mic Qsenoch's commentary

Congratulations to Stef, our Season 5 Dominion League Champion!

59

Dominion League / Champion Match Commentary

« on: January 26, 2015, 12:48:41 pm »

If you're interested in providing Champion Match commentary, please PM me.

In particular for this season (Season 5) I'd like to find people who are available when the match is (Sunday February 1, 20:00 UTC).

It would be nice if you were available some time in the evening (Eastern time) this week to do some practice with commentary.

I'm hoping to simplify this process by not making a poll every time and finding a small group of people who can get more comfortable with doing commentary.

60

Help! / Some league matches

« on: January 19, 2015, 12:24:39 pm »

So I had a couple of games I played in the league that have been bothering me. I'd like to see what I could have done better in these games, because I'm not really seeing anything and ymyosl. If you have any suggestions, I'd be appreciative.

These games are on stream, but I haven't highlighted them or anything. If you'd like to hear my thoughts on video throughout the game or if that makes it easier to follow, I'll probably get to highlighting them soon and then I can link them here, but I haven't done that yet.


Game 1: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150117/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1421528818066.txt

Embassy/Tunnel, yeah? I've played this a couple of times and it's always ended up performing worse than BM+Embassy. So is Embassy/Tunnel not that good, or am I not playing it right? What would you do differently?

Game 2: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150117/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1421529803126.txt

The only real difference I see in our play (besides our draws, obviously) is that my opponent wanted to use Herald as his primary source of draw and I wanted to use Fishing Village/Journeyman. I chose this because of the opportunity to use Doctor for fine-tuned trashing and I thought the deck would green better. I don't know how much of a difference it really makes, TBH, since the payload here is Grand Market and the game will likely end on piles (will it?). I felt one or two turns behind the entire game. What could I have done better here?

Game 3: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150117/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1421530853461.txt

No draw here, but lots going on. The only comment in the chat is that I should have been looking for mid-turn Develop tricks, but I did that a couple of times and never felt that I could do anything profitable (I'd always end up drawing dead actions or something). Obviously I'm behind because he gets to bane my first YW and I don't, but is there something else? Specifics would be nice because I'm not finding them...

Game 4: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20150117/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1421531584853.txt

Game 5: http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?/20150118/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1421597116880.txt

These two games, I'm quite certain that with my draws I was going to lose no matter what.

For game 4, some people were suggesting an Ironworks/Urchin opening, and they said I should have picked up an Ironworks at some point, but actually given my draws, the last time I ever had $4 was turn 3, where it was clear to me that anything other than Urchin would have been a giant mistake. I believe that when I resigned this game, I had less than 0.01% chance of winning, assuming my opponent doesn't just throw the game. My big question here is about Ironworks. Yeah I want one, but how can you justify opening Ironworks/Urchin here (or ever)? And if you don't open with it, was there a time I should have picked one up (given my draws)? What if I had $4 on T4, after seeing that my Urchins didn't collide? Is an Ironworks better than Urchin #4 in that case?

For game 5, I'll admit that I was fully on tilt when I resigned this one. My chances were less than 5% but in a league match it was certainly worth playing out, so I'm not trying to justify my resignation here, that decision was purely emotional. On the other hand, is there anything I should have done differently? My opponent opened Swindler/Urchin instead of my double Urchin opening, which to me seems like a clear misplay (though it certainly works out for him). It's very possible that I'm not able to look at this game objectively. Now aside from the fact that it clearly didn't matter what my buys actually were because they all just got Swindled anyways, could I have done anything different here? Is there any merit to a Swindler opening here?

-------------------

I really don't like to blame luck for my losses, it's a last resort for me, if you will. What I'd really like to find from this is ways I could have done better given my bad draws -- I find that sometimes I don't react well to bad draws, which keeps me from having the best chance to come back in some games. If it's all luck and I played perfectly, then so be it, but I really doubt that. Thanks for listening to me whine.

61

Tournaments and Events / Dominion Team World Cup Live Streams

« on: January 03, 2015, 03:55:04 pm »

RTT and I will both be streaming our match:

Tomorrow, Sunday January 4th, 16:00 UTC -- that's 5PM for him in Germany and 11AM for me on Eastern time.

62

Dominion League / Season 5 - game reports A+B

« on: December 28, 2014, 12:47:21 am »

AdamH 3.5 games, A Drowned Kernel 2.5 games

I've been taking quite the break from Dominion for the holidays and here were are with my premier match in the B division. I hope I don't embarrass myself too badly. 3.5 wins is certainly good enough to call not embarrassing, so I'll take it 

Link to entire Twitch stream
Link to YouTube Video Playlist

Game 1: AdamH 10, ADK 12
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: Herbalist, Pawn, Forager, Familiar, Cache, City, Haggler, Harvest, Knights, Merchant Guild, with Shelters

So ADK goes for Familiar and I don't, that's the main difference here. I don't go all-in for Forager trashing as early as I could have and in the end I pay for it. The jury is still out on whether or not Familiar is worth it here. I'd say we both had pretty bad draws this game.


Game 2: AdamH 16, ADK 9
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: University, Ambassador, Develop, Moneylender, Butcher, Count, Journeyman, Saboteur, Stash, Upgrade

Super-interesting board with Ambassador at the center. ADK gets a really unfortunate 5/2 opening and I manage to stay ahead for most of the game as a result, but there's a lot of really interesting and constructive discussion in the chat for this game, so thanks to Stef and WW for that.


Game 3: ADK 48, AdamH 31
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: Crossroads, Alchemist, Death Cart, Baker, Counting House, Festival, Merchant Ship, Minion, Mint, Tactician

Both ADK and I get pretty fortunate draws here; double-Tac is the way to go, but I misplay things pretty terribly and do basically nothing for two turns and that costs me dearly.


Game 4: ADK 26, AdamH 38
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: Moat, Native Village, Great Hall, Swindler, Scavenger, Treasure Map, Wandering Minstrel, Council Room, Rogue, Prince, with Shelters

If this board doesn't make you think Prince is a good card, I don't know what will. With no trashing, Prince is the only way to make sure you can reliably kick off. I'm able to line up my Prince with attractive targets while ADK can't manage to do so, and Swindler makes things swingy as always.


Game 5: AdamH 42, ADK 25
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: Philosopher's Stone, Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, Spy, Counting House, Stash, Tactician, Witch, Expand, Peddler

Not much going on here, ADK goes for Phil Stones and I don't, and he greens a little early so I win comfortably.


Game 6: ADK 36, AdamH 36
Game Log     Twitch Highlight     YouTube Video
Kingdom Cards: Poor House, University, Lookout, Scheme, Feast, Spice Merchant, Cartographer, Counterfeit, Harvest, Hunting Party

Not much to say about this one other than Hunting Party+Counterfeit.

63

Dominion League / Collecting feedback for providing commentary on Dominion matches

« on: December 05, 2014, 12:34:35 pm »

Not sure if this thread really belongs here or in the Videos & Streams Subboard, but I think the people who visit here are the ones who are more likely to have the type of feedback I want to hear. So here it is.

When I started making videos, it took me a really long time and lots of repetition to find something I was comfortable with; two years and over 555 videos later I'm still learning about things that work and things that don't work. Providing commentary is hard and as I've said before the best thing you can do to improve is to do more of it.

Problem: providing commentary on the champion match while you're not playing is a totally different beast, and it's not a beast you get to practice with very much.

The purpose of this thread is to provide an additional resource to those people who end up commentating champion matches to improve their commentary; largely through asking for and incorporating feedback from viewers.

I haven't gotten a chance to listen to all of the S4 Champion Match yet, but there's one thing I wanted to type before I did: for the first four games of the match, before the champion had been decided, I felt like the tone was much more serious and focused on the game play; while during the last two games, we were just having fun and playing Dominion.

For me personally, I felt more comfortable during the second part because that's more along the lines of my style of commentary, but I certainly tone it down when there's something on the line like the League Championship. But what do people want to see? Finding the right balance on this is something I think we can easily accommodate, but it's hard for me to get a read on what's appropriate.

There are also several logistical issues that come with this format, that maybe have some things we can do to help mitigate them. I have some ideas but I wanted to try and see if there are any other ideas out there before typing them all out (that plus I haven't fully thought about them yet).

Getting inside of the head of the players: Most of the time, commentators speculate on what the players are thinking, but MQ was streaming his own commentary this season, which is often better (well, at least in my opinion but that's clearly biased). Is there a fair way to combine these things? Should there even be outside commentators when one of the players is willing to provide their own commentary?

Commentators don't necessarily know each other: I had never spoken to Stef (using audio) before this match, and only had spoken to Jsh once (at the Chicago meetup). After two seasons of this, it's probably not feasible to try and find time for all commentators to talk before the match and get comfortable with each other, and even if it was, I don't know how much it would help with improving the chemistry between them. How can we improve this given the limitations we have?

I want to talk about more topics, particularly after I listen to it again, but I'd at least like to get some ideas and discussion going so that commentators can have something to go off of for future Champion Matches. Hopefully this will get us started.

64

Dominion League / S4 League Champion Match: Congrats to the S4 champ!

« on: November 30, 2014, 12:11:50 pm »

GET HYEP.

Mic Qsenoch and DG will be facing off in the Dominion League Season 4 Champion Match this Thursday at 19:30 UTC (14:30 Forum Time)!

Technical things have been worked out, hopefully this stream will be higher quality than the last one. I'll be sharing screens directly with MQ and then streaming that to my Twitch channel.

The Tribe Has Spoken™, and commentary will be provided by Stef, myself, and Jsh.

See you all there!

65

Goko Dominion Online / Timeline for MF's overhaul?

« on: November 10, 2014, 04:49:02 pm »

This comes off of a really painful game -- super-interesting league match where it was neck-and-neck. My opponent's internet went out for 5 seconds and Goko dropped the game. This was after we scheduled our match for one of Goko's two weekly server restarts, so we spent 1.5 hours and managed to finish one game (though we should have known better than to schedule our match for when that was going to happen. It's technically our fault but MAN was that annoying.)

These things would be much better if Goko/MF would perform that overhaul they teased us with so long ago, where they make their product into something that might be legitimately coded and stuff? Remember that? It's the whole reason why they aren't fixing anything anymore, you know? I looked on the MF forums and couldn't find any updates on this from the past few months.

And with a new expansion coming along, the whole idea of them pretending to do an overhaul to fix everything just to shut us up so they can leave this thing alone gets much scarier. Has anyone heard anything recently? Or maybe I should just start a thread on the MF forums -- if I can figure out how to do that. Ugh.

66

Help! / What do you think?

« on: November 04, 2014, 09:53:17 pm »

http://www.gokosalvager.com/static/logprettifier.html?20141104/log.5085f5130cf270038ff92212.1415155733164.txt

EDIT: Oasis, Advisor, Caravan, Death Cart, Ironmonger, Remodel, Treasure Map, Explorer, Wharf, Fairgrounds, Provinces/Estates

Presented without comment.

So Fairgrounds, worth it here? Also, how about a Remodel opening?

67

Dominion General Discussion / Jack Of All Lanterns

« on: October 30, 2014, 11:24:41 pm »

JACK OF ALL LANTERNS



It doesn't look nearly as spectacular with the lights on, though...




For reference...




And Here's a link to the stencil I made for this.

Happy Halloween 

68

Dominion Videos and Streams / How to make good Dominion live streams

« on: October 29, 2014, 10:55:38 am »

I've done a lot of live streaming Dominion, arguably more than anyone else. I've also had a lot of experience broadcasting Dominion in my time where I've tried a lot of different things. I've had lots of successes and lots of failures.

Over the past several months, live-streaming Dominion has become much more popular. Lots of people have started streaming for fun or for tournament matches because it's much easier to do than making videos, and much more interactive.

I'm making this series of posts because I've learned a lot in the past two years about broadcasting Dominion that I think may be of some use to others who are casually streaming and want to see a little bit more from it. Of course a lot of my advice may not apply to everyone, but at least I'm putting this out there so it can maybe help someone out there, and it's a chance for me to give back to the community.

I may edit/add to these as I think of more things over time, and I can answer questions as well. This is more of a thought dump right now, maybe it will become more coherent as time goes by.

69

Dominion League / S3 League Champion Match: Congratulations to the league champion!

« on: October 13, 2014, 08:44:27 am »

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Don't miss the exciting conclusion to Season 3 of the Dominion League as the two top-ranked players in the A division square off in the CHAMPION MATCH!

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS!

Yed, AKA "Goliath" currently has a 1.5 point lead over Stef, AKA "David" based on their performance in the A division this season -- can Stef overcome this deficit and pull out at least 4 wins out of 6 games? Find out, LIVE, in this CLASH OF THE TITANS!

TWO WILL ENTER, ONLY ONE WILL EMERGE AS LEAGUE CHAMPION!


The Deets:

When: Sunday 19 Oct. 21:00 CEST (15:00 Forum Time)

Who: yed and Stef will be playing
   Mic Qsenoch and AdamH will be commentating the match, with (at least) Silverspawn and Qvist as guests.

Where: My stream for commentary and chat, or you can watch Stef's stream if you only want to see the playing.

Results, videos, and such are in this post.

70

Non-Mafia Game Threads / Forum Survivor 2 (Winner revealed!)

« on: August 12, 2014, 11:13:53 pm »

CURRENT GAME STATE:

Winner revealed!

Here's a link to a spreadsheet with all of the data for completed challenges.

TIMELINE:
Game start/intro challenge
Intro Challenge results/Intrigue and Seaside tribes formed/F15 Reward/Immunity Challenge starts
F15 Reward/Immunity Challenge results
F15 Tribal Council results/F14 Reward Challenge starts
F14 Reward Challenge results
F14 Immunity Challenge starts
F14 Immunity Challenge results
F14 Tribal Council results/F13 Reward Challenge starts
F13 Reward Challenge results
F13 Immunity Challenge starts
F13 Immunity Challenge results
F13 Tribal Council results/F12 Reward Challenge starts
F12 Reward Challenge results
F12 Immunity Challenge starts
F12 Immunity Challenge results
F12 Tribal Council results/Tribe switch-up (Cornucopia tribe formed)
F11 Reward Challenge starts
F11 Reward Challenge results
F11 Immunity Challenge starts
F11 Immunity Challenge results/Jimm eliminated
Axxle eliminated
Tribes merge, Platinum tribe formed
F9 Reward Challenge starts
F9 Reward Challenge details explained
F9 Reward Challenge results
F9 Reward Challenge write-up
F9 Immunity Challenge starts
F9 Immunity Challenge results
F9 Tribal Council starts
F9 Tribal Council results
F8 Reward Challenge starts
F8 Reward Challenge ends
F8 Immunity Challenge starts
F8 Immunity Challenge ends
F8 Tribal Council starts
F8 Tribal Council results
F7 Reward Challenge starts
F7 Reward Challenge ends/F7 Immunity Challenge starts
F7 Immunity Challenge
F7 Tribal Council starts
F7 Tribal Council results
F6 Reward Challenge starts
F6 Reward Challenge results
F6 Immunity Challenge starts
F6 Immunity Challenge ends
F6 Tribal Council starts
F6 Tribal Council results
F5 Reward Challenge starts
F5 Reward Challenge results
F5 Immunity Challenge starts
F5 Immunity Challenge results
F5 Tribal Council starts
F5 Tribal Council results
F4 Immunity Challenge starts
F4 Immunity Challenge results
F4 Tribal Council starts
F4 Tribal Council Results
F3 Immunity challenge starts
F3 Immunity challenge results
F3 Tribal Council starts
F3 Tribal Council results
Final Tribal Council starts
Winner revealed!

LIST OF STAFF

AdamH -- host
Liopoil and Mpsprs -- co-moderators, lots of help with challenges
EFHW and mail-mi -- "the creative help"

Special thanks to Mathgrant for allowing me to use some of his logic puzzles for challenges.
Special thanks to this YouTube channel for most of the Survivor music used in the videos for this season.

LIST OF CASTAWAYS (15)

WINNER: Dsell
2nd place: Mcmcsalot
3rd place: Twistedarcher
4th place: Sudgy
5th place: Robz
6th place: Galzria
7th place: AHoppy
8th place: pst
9th place: Eevee
10th place: Axxle
11th place: Jimm
12th place: Zporiri
13th place: Archetype
14th place: A Drowned Kernel
15th place: Hydrad



GENERAL RULES (mostly stolen from last season, but there are changes -- please re-read!)

-- Don't use weird fonts, colors, etc. Maroon is for the mod. If you want to make sure something is seen by moderators, please use bold text.

-- You are absolutely forbidden from discussing this game with other players, except in designated qts and threads.

-- You are expected to play with morality and integrity. Do not cheat. Do not game the system. There may be challenges that require you to do something that can't be monitored by mods or other players. This will be kept to a minimum. However, your conscience will have to suffice in these situations. It's just a game--there is no prize. I will say it again: Do not cheat.

-- Carefully read, and obey, mod-given instructions.

-- Deadlines will be relatively flexible, but I'd like to keep the game moving along. There will be contingency plans in place should you miss a deadline in a challenge, and you will vote randomly if you miss the deadline for a Tribal Council vote. I am happy to extend deadlines as long as I know about it before the deadline occurs.

-- Most communication in this game will happen in QTs. You'll start the game with a QT where you can talk to your entire tribe, and once the first challenge is over you will be given a QT with each other player on your tribe. If you wish to speak privately with more than one other player on your tribe, post in your confessional who you'd like a QT with and I will set up additional QTs. Other players will not necessarily know that these QTs exist, although conditions could change this.

-- You may not quote private moderator-supplied information, nor may you directly quote from one QT into another, or into the game thread. This is important. You may not copy/paste your words or anyone else's words into another QT -- you must paraphrase.  Think of this as the thing that hits closest to IRL. If you are having a conversation with someone, and later you relay that conversation to a third party, you aren't going to remember the exact exact phrasing. So don't use it here. This will be a little laxer than in mafia games--you don't have to alter every single phrase that you relay to another person. Just don't give me the impression that you have copied whole sections of text.

-- The conversations you have in your QTs are private, meaning that they cannot be seen by people in the game other than those in the QT. Having personal conversations is part of the game, but keep in mind that there are people spectating and moderators who can see your QTs, and at the end of the game the links to these will be released unless you say otherwise.


SURVIVOR RULES

-- There are 15 players divided into two tribes. At first, you may only speak with your fellow tribemates, in QTs. There will generally be two challenges, a Reward Challenge and an Immunity Challenge, during each phase of the game. Sometimes these challenges will be combined. Rewards will include small in-game advantages, hints and tactical aids in future Immunity Challenges, clues to Hidden Immunity Idols, information, etc. Challenges themselves will consist of online games (including Goko Dominion), puzzles, quizzes, physical challenges, etc.

-- The tribe that loses the Immunity Challenge will go to Tribal Council, where a player will be voted out of the game. Individual Immunity Idols and Hidden Immunity Idols can be used to protect yourself during Tribal Council. In general, these items must be used AFTER votes have been cast, but before they are announced. Any votes cast against a player who played an idol will then be discounted, and the player with the most valid votes will be eliminated instead.

-- A tie will trigger a revote. Only the players who received the most votes will be eligible to be eliminated, and they will not vote. If there is still a tie after that, the tied players will participate in a challenge.

-- At some point, the two tribes will merge into one. At this point, tribal general discussion will take place in the main thread, rather than a tribal QT.

-- At some point, eliminated players will no longer be completely out of the game--they will instead join the Jury.

-- When just 2 or 3 players remain in the game, we will hold the Final Tribal Council. The members of the Jury will question the finalists, and then vote for a winner. Whoever receives the most votes is the Winner of Forum Survivor 2.

71

Dominion General Discussion / Scrying Pool Math

« on: August 04, 2014, 03:26:55 pm »

DISCLAIMER: I'm well aware that this discussion is largely theoretical in nature. I won't attempt to inject any application of the findings here into actual Dominion strategy -- that's for the reader to you. The purpose of this is simply to calculate an expected draw for your Scrying Pools given a certain deck composition.

Sometimes there's Scrying Pool on a board and there's no trashing. Sometimes it's the only non-terminal source or the best source of draw, enough that if you're going to try and increase your hand size, that's what you're going for. Is it worth it? Say it with me...

Depends on the kingdom.

But how do you tell? I, for one, am no stranger to getting crushed by people who go for Scrying Pool when I've decided it wasn't worth it.

I talked about this in that third link ("crushed") above, but sometimes it's helpful for me to try and calculate one's expected draw with Scrying Pool based on action density, and when I visualize that number in the context of the specific deck I'd try to build, sometimes I can see Scrying Pool's value more clearly. Unfortunately for me this usually happens after the game is over so I'm working on that.

So there are a couple of numbers that I want to talk about computing and maybe I'm close to getting this right. First off, I want to only look at the case where there's no trashing. Let's be generous, though, and say that the only non-Action card you have to buy is a single Potion and everything else is an Action card and not worry about greening, so you have 11 non-Action cards in your deck. I want to know how many Action cards (X) you have to have in your deck to make Scrying Pool's expected draw be E cards.

A simple calculation to make would look like:

Code: [Select]

Expected Draw = 1+(X/11)

and this is what I've been using to get close to this number, but I'm thinking maybe this isn't accurate enough (it doesn't even attempt to take the Spy-effect into account, among some other little things). I want to find either something that's closer and still easy to compute or just find some benchmarks for "E=2 when X=this and E=3 when X=that, etc."

Depending on your deck, you may also want to consider the case that discarding a non-Action card is just as good as drawing it because of the cycling or the nature or your payload (Let's say you're playing Highway/Market Square/Scrying Pool with no other support whatsoever; it doesn't matter if you're drawing your Coppers or not, you just want to find and play as many of your action cards as possible so Scrying Pool gets a boost here).

Here are some of my attempts at refining this calculation:

1. Replace "X" with "X-1" because you can't draw the Scrying Pool you play.
2. Split the formula into two separate cases:

Code: [Select]

E = P(top card was an action)*(Expected draw in that case) + P(top card wasn't an action and you discarded it)*(Expected draw in that case[+1])

-- and you can insert a "+1" where I pointed that out if you're counting the cycling advantage from the card you discarded.

Let me try and come up with expressions for these things

Code: [Select]

P(top card was an action) = (X-1)/(X+10)
P(top card was not an action) = 11/(X+10)

Expected Draw given we saw an action = 2 + (X-2)/11
Expected Draw given we saw a non-action) = 1 + (X-1)/10

The only thing I can think of that this doesn't take into account is the fact that your deck composition changes with each Action card you draw, making it slightly less likely each time that you hit another Action. I can't think of a concise formula for this and I'm terrible with summations so I don't have that formula right away (so far my attempts at coming up with this have just looked wrong to me so I just need to think about this a little more).

This stuff is messy but at least I could plug it into Excel or something and get some numbers and charts that could potentially be useful. I also know there are quite a lot of math people around here that would at least find this intelectually stimulating if nothing else. Help is appreciated, particularly in telling me where I'm wrong.


EDIT 1


Without the spy effect taken into account, but with deck changing taken into account, I believe I'm pretty close with the following formula.

Code: [Select]

Let E = expected draw from playing your Scrying Pool (sans Spy effect)
    X = the number of Action cards in your deck

E(X) = 1 + (X-1)/(X+10) + [(X-1)/(X+10)]*[(X-2)/(X+9)] + [(X-1)/(X+10)]*[(X-2)/(X+9)]*[(X-3)/(X+8)] + ... + [(X-1)/(X+10)]*[(X-2)/(X+9)]*...*[(X-n)/(X+11-n)] + ... + 0 when n eventually reaches X

E(X) = 1 + sum(i=1 up to X-1 (inclusive),
               prod(j=0 up to i-1 (inclusive),
                    (X-1-j)/(X+10-j)
               )
           )

So if that's correct, then we have

Code: [Select]

Let Ea(X) = Expected draw given you saw an Action card
    Eb(X) = Expected draw given you discarded a non-Action card

Ea(X) = 2 + sum(i=1 up to X-2 (inclusive),
                prod(j=0 up to i-1 (inclusive),
                     (X-1-j)/(X+10-j)
                )
            )

Eb(X) = 1 + sum(i=1 up to X-1 (inclusive),
                prod(j=0 up to i-1 (inclusive),
                     (X-1-j)/(X+9-j)
                )
            )

So if we take from above

Code: [Select]

Let Pa(X) = probability that the top card was an action
    Pb(X) = probability that the top card was not an action

Pa(X) = (X-1)/(X+10)
Pb(X) = 11/(X+10)

Then we get

Code: [Select]

E(X) = Ea(X)*Pa(X) + Eb(X)*Pb(X)

I think this is correct, yeah? I'll plug this into Excel when I get a chance and try to make some pretty pictures.


EDIT 2


Using this handy website I'm able to run simple Python code from all kinds of computers; I've written a little bit of Python to compute these formulas. Here's the code, for those interested.

Code: [Select]

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.7

def Ea(X, NA):
  sum = 2.0
  for i in range(1, X-1):
    prod = 1.0
    for j in range(i):
      prod *= (float(X)-2.0-float(j))/(float(X)+NA-2.0-float(j))
    sum += prod
  return sum
     
def Eb(X, NA):
  sum = 1.0
  for i in range(1, X):
    prod = 1.0
    for j in range(i):
      prod *= (float(X)-1.0-float(j))/(float(X)+NA-2.0-float(j))
    sum += prod
  return sum
   
def Pa(X, NA):
  return (float(X)-1.0)/(float(X)+float(NA)-1.0)
 
def Pb(X, NA):
  return (float(NA))/(float(X)+float(NA)-1.0)
 
def EaSimple(X, NA):
  return 2.0 + (float(X)-2.0)/(float(NA))
 
def EbSimple(X, NA):
  return 1.0 + (float(X)-1.0)/(float(NA-1))
 
def Esilly(X, NA):
  return 1.0 + (float(X))/(float(NA))
   
for X in range(2, 31):
  #for NA in range(6, 21):
  for NA in range(11, 12):
    EofX = Ea(X, NA)*Pa(X, NA) + Eb(X, NA)*Pb(X, NA)
    EsimpleofX = EaSimple(X, NA)*Pa(X, NA) + EbSimple(X, NA)*Pb(X, NA)
    print "%2d" % X,
    print "%2d" % NA,
    print "%2.4f" % Esilly(X, NA),
    print "%2.4f" % EsimpleofX,
    print "%2.4f" % EofX

I imported the printed results into Excel and messed around with them until it seemed like it was as visually appealing as I could easily get it. The following are the results from this:



The interesting result here is the difference between the blue and green lines.

So my back-of-the-envelope calculation of E(X) = 1 + (X/11) gives a pessimistic viewpoint of the draw you can expect; the actual expected draw is usually about a half a card more than this calculation gives, or you can get away with having 3-4 less Action cards in your deck than this calculation would imply in order to get the expected draw you're after.

This next picture attempts to show the effect of a different number of non-action cards in your deck on expected draw.



I really don't think any less than 11 non-actions is all *that* relevant to actual Dominion, since if you're trashing your cards and drawing with Scrying Pool the name of the game is minimizing that number and you actually have some power to do so. I wanted to make a 3-D graph with two independent variables but all the Excel options for that look terrible, so I decided to just color-code it. Do with this data what you want, but it seems to me that you probably need to add one extra Action card per non-Action card to your deck in order to make sure your Scrying Pools are expected to draw the same amount. Keep in mind that now you have two extra cards to draw.

72

GokoDom / Thank you to Kirian!

« on: May 21, 2014, 08:22:35 am »

I mentioned before that I had a surprise for Kirian (and everyone else) to show my thanks for all the work he's put into organizing the GokoDoms. I had a blast playing them and I know it's a lot of work -- there is no such thing as too much thanks for Kirian...

So Nick and I put a little something together. Hope you enjoy it!

73

Game Reports / Maybe don't reveal the Moat?

« on: May 14, 2014, 12:07:04 pm »

Played an IRL game last night with Kfm that was pretty interesting in some regards. Let's see if I can remember the kingdom:

Cellar, Pawn, Pearl Diver, Moat, Embargo, Plaza, Feast, Rabble, Margrave, Fairgrounds, no shelters or colonies.

With no trashing, Embargo and Cellar become very important; we both went for the draw engine with him winning the Plaza split 6-4, and a lot of other interesting things were happening too. But the main thing I found was interesting was that there were several times when I had a Moat in hand and I didn't want to reveal it to Margrave/Rabble attacks.

Have I already seen all of my Villages this shuffle? Yeah, Rabble me all you want. Is my opening hand missing a Village (I have draw since I have a Moat in hand)? Yeah I'll take the Margrave, sure. Through careful deck tracking I found it really interesting that at least half of the time I had a Moat in hand I was allowing some kind of attack to hit me -- some turns I wanted Margrave but not Rabbles, some turns it was the other way around.

Unfortunately, most turns I was wishing I had a Moat in hand and seeing them Rabbled away, and then there were a couple of early turns when I just forgot to reveal. Oh well. Yeah I lost that game anyways.

74

Game Reports / Worst game ever

« on: April 22, 2014, 12:12:19 am »

In this game there was KC+Possession flying around. Swingy as always, and no resignation was appropriate after any of the KC+Possessions. This was terrible.

75

Dominion Articles / A place for the wisdom of top-tier players

« on: April 14, 2014, 08:51:46 am »

You know who they are -- the big names, the celebrities of the Dominion world.

I've been really focusing on my play this year and I've noticed significant improvement. I've climbed up to around Isotropish Level 40 and hover around Rank 50, and for the first time in my life, I finally feel like I deserve the title of "one of the top players in the world." But I'm not one of those people.

How do I know? Because every time I play one of them I know I'm probably going to lose before the game even starts. If I lose a game with one of them I can usually tell after shuffling three times (and they've shuffled like 7 times), but if I win a game, it's a battle that came down the very last turn of the game, and up until the final moment where I've ended it on a win (by one point) it could have gone either way. I feel like I've never actually outplayed any of them -- the best I've done is "something similar that worked out for me in the end, probably due to luck."

If I'm ranked #50 in the world, I still feel like I have miles of improvement to make before I can really compete with them. So how do you make that improvement? Well of course you play more Dominion, but also maybe this thread.

So maybe this can be a place where they post the secrets to how they are so amazing? I have one topic to get the discussion started:

High-variance vs. low-variance strategies

Do you prefer to play more aggressively, where you over-terminal yourself and it's amazing when everything lines up just right, but terrible if it doesn't? Or do you prefer to play a more consistent strategy that will do fairly well most of the time? Yes, this is a very complicated question that depends on a lot of things: what factors into this decision for you? Play Style? Percent chance of winning the game overall? Other stuff?

Terrible example: BM+Smithy vs. BM+Envoy. BM+Envoy can be really really good when you get good draws. Like you can take down 4 Provinces in 11 turns or something ridiculous. Other times you can't even get there by T17 if your Envoys miss all your shuffles and other terrible things happen. BM+Smithy is much more consistent. It can't do T11, really, but you'll never be sitting there on T17 without 4 Provinces in your deck, like ever. Which do you play? What if the simulators couldn't tell you the percentages, then what would you play?